How to stage an Irish music festival: From All Together Now to Beyond the Pale

Irish Times

a day ago

Tens of thousands of music fans will arrive at outdoor festivals around Ireland this summer, hauling bags stuffed with battery packs and wet wipes for a weekend camping in a field they pray stays dry.
It can feel like entering a separate society. Hordes of people mill from campsite to stage to food truck; queues form for everything from toilets to patches of grass; flags and art installations dot the site as community hubs. It can be difficult to imagine the space as anything other than the makeshift city in front of you, but just a few days earlier there will have been nothing in its place.
Then, almost as soon as the event ends, logistics planning for next year begins – including, if the festival is growing, how to tweak facilities to cater for more people.
A small change can have a big effect. At the end of June, for example, the more than 200,000 music fans who'll descend on Worthy Farm, in southwest England, for Glastonbury will be served by the festival's own reservoir.
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The organisers built it to provide up to three million litres of free water each day for festivalgoers to fill their reusable bottles with after banning single-use plastic bottles in 2019. Glastonbury is almost three times the size of its nearest Irish competitor, with more than 100 stages and more than 2,000 acts, so the move made a big difference; before then it had faced a mountain of waste after each three-day event, including 40 tonnes of single-use plastic bottles, or well over 1.5 million of them (alongside almost 45 tonnes of aluminium cans).
In the United States, Coachella attracts about 125,000 festivalgoers on each of its two consecutive weekends. (The line-up is the same at each, to increase overall capacity to 250,000 people a year.) This year, fans said, seemingly minor changes to its campsite arrangements left some of them stuck in traffic for up to 12 hours as they queued to get in to the site.
The domino effect may be most significant for these gigantic international events, but attention to detail is paramount at any festival. We asked some key people to tell us how it all works.
All Together Now
All Together Now: Declan McKenna on the main stage. Photograph: Aiesha Wong
First-year capacity of 15,000 people
2025 capacity of 30,000 people
Core team of about 15 people
About 700 people involved in the build and break phases
3,000-3,500 people work on-site during the live event
It takes one day to put up a tented stage at ATN and several days for the main stage
For
All Together Now
, which is set to host 30,000 attendees at Curraghmore Estate, in Co Waterford, over the August bank holiday weekend, planning for 2026 will begin in September. Details are reviewed – access routes can be revised, stages and vendors repositioned, and lighting plans refined.
This is the sixth edition of ATN, and capacity has doubled since year one.
The festival's core team is about 15 people, but that expands significantly as the event approaches. Up to 700 people construct the site during the build and break phase. (Most stay nearby or commute from home rather than setting up camp, but as the festival gets closer some of them move into camper-vans or tents.) For the live event, that number jumps to between 3,000 and 3,500 people, including traders, security, crew and other staff.
All Together Now: Fans enjoying the festival at Curraghmore Estate, Co Waterford in 2024.
Photograph: Gareth Chaney
'You get to know the land really well – how the water flows, where the sun hits, the best angles for stage placement, how to avoid sound spill and so on – and we make small improvements every year based on what we've learned,' says Helena Burns of Pod Festivals, which also oversees Forbidden Fruit and In the Meadows. With experience, she says, the organisational process has become smoother.
'Through the years we've added in new external permanent roads for better vehicle access for patrons, relocated vendor lines for better servicing, moved a major stage uphill for better ground conditions should we encounter severe weather, and more.
'While the site layout has evolved since the beginning, we haven't needed to make any major structural changes. The ATN site was designed with growth in mind, which has helped us scale up in a natural way.'
All Together Now: Kiamos at the festival in 2024
A tented stage can go up in a day; a main stage takes several days. If cranes or plant machinery are required, trackway has to be laid. Tech production load-ins of sound, lighting and visual equipment happen last, taking another day or two. Logistics determine much of the site's layout, but beyond that there is a big focus on aesthetics.
'Logistics definitely play a part in the placement of installations and stages – we have to consider access, power, sight lines and safety, and so much more – but they don't dictate the creative vision,' Burns says. 'If we love an idea, we'll do everything we can to make it work.'
'We collaborate closely with artists, creative partners and sponsors to shape the festival's look and feel. Everything is installed with purpose – from colourful canopies and light installations to sculptures and projections, we're always aiming to create something new and visually exciting.'
Beyond the Pale
Beyond the Pale
First-year capacity under 5,000
2025 capacity of 12,000
Generator-powered but doesn't use fossil fuels
Green efforts are part of festival's agenda – last year only six tents were left behind
In its first year at the Glendalough Estate, in Co Wicklow, in 2022,
Beyond the Pale
had a capacity of under 5,000. By 2024 it had reached 10,000, and this June the festival will welcome 12,000 festivalgoers. The acts play to crowds that range from more than 9,000 people at the main stage right down to about 100 people at the event's most intimate stage. Overall, the organisers say, Beyond the Pale is still small enough to maintain its boutique feel.
When it comes to putting on each year's event, access is one of the biggest considerations, according to festival producer Kate Farnon.
'The site can be tricky,' she says. 'It's kind of in a valley, so access is sometimes difficult, with different types of vehicles and so on. That's always the first consideration. Last year the site expanded and changed quite a bit. If you're anticipating larger numbers you have to look at site layout and make sure that you can handle the new capacity in infrastructure and egress.
'At this point the festival has the luxury of being able to incorporate more space. It's also designed in a way that the campsite is very close to the main arena. I think that's a big plus for punters. If they need to nip back to get something it's not a big hike. It's quite a compact site, and I think that really impacts how people experience it.'
Beyond the Pale festival at Glendalough, Co Wicklow
Providing power for thousands of people in a concentrated area is difficult, and festivals tend to require generators. In an effort to be greener, Beyond the Pale powers them with hydrotreated vegetable oil, a biofuel. It also uses as much wind-generated battery power as it can, but that's still an expensive technology.
Finding a more sustainable mode of power supply and stepping away from generators are high on the agenda for the coming years, Farnon says.
'There is a real movement towards being more efficient with power, and I think there are some exciting things happening in that area. It's a big area for a festival to move in to, because it's going to make such a massive difference in terms of footprint. For most punters and festivalgoers, it's a shadow over the fun of going to a music festival.'
Last year Beyond the Pale had 15 stages. The look of the site is important to sponsors as well as organisers. With Glendalough as a backdrop, the goal is to fit in to the environment.
'I think the biggest limitations are temporary structures,' Farnon says. 'They are what they are. They don't have a huge amount of variation, but going back to the functionality and the health and safety, they have the engineers' sign-off. At times you'll see something new come along.'
Forest Fest
Forest Fest: The Cult on stage at the Co Laois music festival in 2024. Photograph: Brian Bastick
2025 capacity of 12,000
On-site preparations begin 10 days before the festival
Five stages on less than 20 acres of land
Construction of festival infrastructure takes about 72 hours
It takes about 10 days to prepare Emo Park, in Co Laois, for Forest Fest, where capacity matches Beyond the Pale's 12,000. Safety and security are arranged before staging crews arrive, trucking in the larger structures in the space of two or three days. Light and sound crews follow. The site is less than 20 acres, and its five stages are constructed next to each other to minimise walking for guests – Forest Fest positions itself as an event for a more mature audience.
'The focus was and remains always on the quality of the music and the quality of the product,' says Philip Meagher, the festival's founder. 'We never wanted to go to a large-scale event where that gets diluted. We've insisted that the numbers stay at a very manageable level and that all of the facilities – including parking and sites for campervans and tents and so forth – are very convenient to the venue.'
Forest Fest: Dexys on stage at the Co Laois music festival in 2024. Photograph: Fionn Mulvey
An older audience, Meagher says, tends to be more discerning. There is less focus on decor and more on functionality. The main logistical difficulty for Forest Fest is accessing the site, a problem that has been made much easier over the last couple of years through the building of access roads. That has aided the organisational process as well as helping attendees with additional needs.
'Thankfully the number of wheelchair users and people with accessibility issues, those numbers have been growing year on year for us,' Meagher says. 'I think the word has gone out that we're a very handy, convenient site and it's on the flat. It's all very manageable. Basically, Emo becomes the venue – the village becomes the venue. All the roads are closed off and the whole community gets behind the event and welcomes people.
'Within the venue footprint is our local national school. That facility is made available for disability-access parking. Wheelchair users are able to drive directly in to the site – they're parking up on tarmac basketball courts and they're literally one minute away from the gate in to the venue.'
Forest Fest: Some of the crowd at the Co Laois music festival in 2024. Photograph: Brian Bastick
Every outdoor Irish festival has to deal with the looming threat of bad weather, and 2023 was a trial for Forest Fest, when storms delayed the arrival of equipment and some camper van guests had to be moved to a site not intended for use. Since then they have doubled down on contingency plans.
'I was being blue-lighted around in the back of a Garda car to farmers in the middle of the night, looking for brown bales of hay and sand,' Meagher says. 'The local community and farmers were unbelievable the way they supported us that year. Only for that support I don't think we would have been able to keep the gates open. It was a learning curve, but I'd never want to go through it again.'
Vantastival
SoFFt Productions
, an arts organisation and production house, has been operating across a range of events for the past five years, sparked by SoFFt Nights, a series of outdoor, socially distanced gigs that it staged during the pandemic.
At the centre of a core team of five are Conor Jacob and Natasha Duffy, who each have a wealth of experience in promotion and production management.
SoFFt looks after staging and production for Irish events ranging from Live at the Marquee, in Cork, to concerts at the Iveagh Gardens, in Dublin. Duffy is the business's creative director; Jacob is head of design. When we speak they're focused on
Vantastival
, a weekend music and camper van festival in Louth in September. Regardless of the size of the event, Jacob explains, the process is similar.
'It's really important to always try and think holistically,' he says. 'Whether it's high stakes, with a lot of gear and a lot of people, or something intimate and small, people do inherently recognise when something feels right and when it doesn't. That has to be respected.'
SoFFt's work usually involves three tiers of contributors. Outside of the five central figures, any project involves enlisting the help of freelancers and vendors. Beyond that there is a local crew described as the backbone of the production, who are crucial to the physical set-up. Versatility is vital to making the business function. 'On any one job we could be employing 30 people a day,' Jacob says.
SoFFt has developed a reputation for events that cater for attendees with additional needs. It has worked with South Dublin County Council on programmes designed for neurodivergent audiences, and Duffy keeps a close eye on emerging trends in the space – she mentions Coldplay's use of vibrating vests to enhance hearing-impaired fans' concert experience.
'One of the first things we did when we were running SoFFt Nights during Covid was set up two different sensory areas for people who were neurodivergent,' she says. 'We had the sensory cave, where we had a neurodivergent artist build a big soundscape, and we turned it into a decompression zone.
'We spent a lot of time marketing that. The outcome was we had a lot more people with children with autism and ADHD at the events, because they knew they were welcome and that we were dedicating time, space and money to making sure the event was inclusive and accessible.'
Though they also facilitate larger events, there is something about smaller, independent festivals that ties in with SoFFt's ethos. Logistically, it becomes more possible to attend to the needs of the individual.
'When you're doing something on a smaller scale you become really invested in the audience experience,' Duffy says. 'You become really interested. When they walk on-site, what are they seeing, feeling and experiencing? What sort of interactive, immersive elements might you have?
'Your design becomes so important because it's all about the vibe. It's all about the other people. It's about creating nice nooks and crannies for people to sit around and talk. With the smaller festivals as well, they're very much about community. By the end of Vantastival everybody has met each other and built up a rapport. That's probably one of the reasons it has maintained a loyal audience.'